• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.6557-6562
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• 2013

Objective: Specific promoters could improve efficiency and ensure the safety of gene therapy. The aim of our study was to screen examples for lung cancer. Methods: The firefly luciferase gene was used as a reporter, and promoters based on serum markers of lung cancer were cloned. The activity and specificity of seven promoters, comprising CEACAM5 (carcinoembryonic antigen, CEA), GRP (Gastrin-Releasing Peptide), KRT19 (cytokeratin 19, KRT), SFTPB (surfactant protein B, SP-B), SERPINB3 (Squamous Cell Carcinoma Antigen, SCCA), SELP (Selectin P, Granule Membrane Protein 140kDa, Antigen CD62, GMP) and DKK1 (Dickkopf-1) promoters were compared in lung cancer cells to obtain cancer-specific examples with strong activity. Results: The CEACAM5, DKK1, GRP, SELP, KRT19, SERPINB3 and SFTPB promoters were cloned. Furthermore, we successfully constructed recombinant vector pGL-CEACAM5 (DKK1, GRP, SELP, KRT19, SERPINB3 and SFTPB) contained the target gene. After cells were transfectedwith recombinant plasmids, we found that the order of promoter activity from high to low was SERPINB3, DKK1, SFTPB, KRT19, CEACAM5, SELP and GRP and the order for promoters regarding specificity and high potential were SERPINB3, DKK1, SELP, SFTPB, CEACAM5, KRT19 and GRP. Conclusion: The approach adopted is feasible to screen for new tumour specific promoters with biomarkers. In addition, the screened lung-specific promoters might have potential for use in lung cancer targeted gene therapy research.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.166-169
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• 2012

In several biotechnological applications of living bacterial cells with inducible gene expression systems, the extent of overexpression and the specificity to the inducer are key elements. In the present study, we established the concentration ranges of $Zn^{2+}$, $Ni^{2+}$, $Co^{2+}$, ${AsO_2}^-$, and $Cd^{2+}$ ions that caused significant activation of the respective promoters of Synechocystis sp. without concomitant unspecific stress responses. The low expression levels can be increased up to 10-100-fold upon treatments with $Cd^{2+}$, ${AsO_2}^-$, $Zn^{2+}$, and $Co^{2+}$ ions and up to 800-fold upon $Ni^{2+}$ treatment. These results facilitate the development of conditional gene expression systems in cyanobacteria.

• Journal of Plant Biology
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.229-235
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• 1992

Differential expression of the three chlorophyll afb binding (cab) protein gene (cabl, cab2, and cab3) promoters of Arabidopsis thaliana was studied in tobacco plants transformed with cab-CAT (chloramphenicol acetyltransferase) translational fusions. CAT activity was measured to monitor the activities of the cab promoters. The activity of cabi promoter was higher than the other two in transformed tobacco leaves and also in calli and shoots derived from the leaves. Their activities were organ-specific and were the lowest in roots, medium in stems, and the highest in leaves. The relative activity of cabi promoter in stems comparing to it activity in leaves was, however, much higher than the values of cab2 and cab3. When the cab promoter activity was expressed as CAT activity per unit chlorophyll instead of CAT activity per unit protein, the relative cab] promoter activity (stem/leaf) became almost unity. This result suggests that cab2 and cab3 show photosynthetic organ-specificity but cabl does not. Similar result was obtained in the differentiation process of stems and leaves from shoots derived from the transgenic tobacco leaves.leaves.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.228-233
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• 1997

The MTF1 gene of Saccharomyces cerevisiae encodes a 43 kDa MITOCHONDRIAL RNA polymerase specificity factor which recognizes mitochondrial promoters to initiate correct transcription. To better understand structure-function of the MTF1 gene as well as the transcription mechanism of mitochondrial RNA polymerase, two cold-sensitive alleles of the MTF1 mutation were isolated by plasmid shuffling method after PCR-based random mutagenesis of the MTF1 gene. The mutation sites were analyzed by nucleotide sequencing. These cs phenotype mtf1 mutants were respiration competent on the nonfermentible glycerol medium at the permissive temperature, but incompetent at 13.deg.C. The cs phenotype allele of the MTF1, yJH147, encoded an L146P replacement. The other cs allele, yJH148, contained K179E and K214M double replacements. Mutations in both alleles were in a region of Mtflp which is located between domains with amino acid sequence similarities to conserved regions 2 and 3 of bacterial s factors.

• The Korean Journal of Zoology
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.433-441
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• 1995

Mammary tissue-specificity of the caprine $\beta$-lactoglobulin promoter appears to be secured by repression in non-expressing cells. In order to identify the mechanism of the negative regulation, the upstream promoter sequence of the caprine $\beta$-lactoglobulin gene was analyzed in detail. The repression was mediated by the upstream flanking sequence from -47O to -205. The sequence could repress the promoter activity of $\beta$-lactoglobulin in either orientation. The effect of the putative negative regulation element of caprine $\beta$-lactoglobulin on heterlogous promoters, however, varied: the promoter activity of herpes simplex virus thimidine kinase was either repressed or activated by the sequence depending on its orientation, while the SV4O early promoter was activated rather than repressed. The regulatory sequence involving the putative negative regulatory element was strongly shifted with the nuclear extract from non-mammary HeLa and CV-1 cells, while only weak shift was observed with that of mammary HC11 cells. Such correlation between repression and factor binding suggests that the protected regions in foot-printing assay may be the negative regulatory elements of $\beta$-lactoalobulin that serve tissue-specific repression.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.131-148
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• 2010

Piglet health at weaning is compromised due to several stress factors. Following the ban of antibiotic growth promoters new alternatives are required to control these problems. This paper reviews the evidence available for the use of spray dried animal plasma (SDAP) as an alternative to antibiotics in weaning pigs. Data from 75 trials in 43 publications involving over 12,000 piglets (mean values) have been used to calculate the performance responses of piglets according to several factors including SDAP origin, protein source from the control diet being replaced, dose of inclusion, age and weight of the piglets at weaning, sanitary conditions and simultaneous use or not of medication. Although the use of SDAP of all origins results in positive responses, it appears that plasma from porcine origin has the highest efficacy. This could be explained by the specificity of its IgG against porcine pathogens. During the first week post-weaning the response to plasma appears to increase with the inclusion dose, although over the two-week pre-starter period an optimal inclusion level of 4-8% is suggested. SDAP improves feed efficiency more markedly when the piglets are challenged with an experimental infection or when feed does not contain medication, which could be indicative of a lower expenditure of energy and nutrients to build an immune response against the challenge. There is evidence supporting that SDAP IgG and other bioactive substances therein prevent the binding of pathogens to the gut wall and reduce the incidence of diarrhoea in the post-weaning phase. Overall, plasma can be postulated as an excellent alternative to in-feed antimicrobials for piglets in the post-weaning phase.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.250-261
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• 2010

The expression of vaccine antigens in transgenic plants has the potential to provide a convenient, stable, safe approach for oral vaccination alternative to traditional parenteral vaccines. Over the past two decades, many different vaccine antigens expressed via the plant nuclear genome have elicited appropriate immunoglobulin responses and have conferred protection upon oral delivery. Up to date, efforts to produce antigen proteins in plants have focused on potato, tobacco, tomato, banana, and seed (maize, rice, soybean, etc). The choice of promoters affects transgene transcription, resulting in changes not only in concentration, but also in the stage tissue and cell specificity of its expression. Inclusion of mucosal adjuvants during immunization with the vaccine antigen has been an important step towards the success of plant-derived vaccines. In animal and Phase I clinical trials several plant-derived vaccine antigens have been found to be safe and induce sufficiently high immune response. Future areas of research should further characterize the induction of the mucosal immune response and appropriate dosage for delivery system of animal and human vaccines. This article reviews the current status of development in the area of the use of plant for the development of oral vaccines.

• BMB Reports
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• v.41 no.9
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• pp.615-625
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• 2008

Over a last decade, intense interest has been focused on biomarker discovery and their clinical uses. This interest is accelerated by the completion of human genome project and the progress of techniques in proteomics. Especially, cancer biomarker discovery is eminent in this field due to its anticipated critical role in early diagnosis, therapy guidance, and prognosis monitoring of cancers. Among cancers, lung cancer, one of the top three major cancers, is the one showing the highest mortality because of failure in early diagnosis. Numerous potential DNA biomarkers such as hypermethylations of the promoters and mutations in K-ras, p53, and protein biomarkers; carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), CYFRA21-1, plasma kallikrein B1 (KLKB1), Neuron-specific enolase, etc. have been discovered as lung cancer biomarkers. Despite extensive studies thus far, few are turned out to be useful in clinic. Even those used in clinic do not show enough sensitivity, specificity and reproducibility for general use. This review describes what the cancer biomarkers are for, various types of lung cancer biomarkers discovered at present and predicted future advance in lung cancer biomarker discovery with proteomics technology.

• BMB Reports
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.648-656
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• 2004

This paper deals with the development of a predictive probabilistic model, a composite dependency-reflecting model (CDRM), which was designed to detect core promoter regions and transcription start sites (TSS) in vertebrate genomic DNA sequences, an issue of some importance for genome annotation. The model actually represents a combination of first-, second-, third- and much higher order or long-range dependencies obtained using the expanded maximal dependency decomposition (EMDD) procedure, which iteratively decomposes data sets into subsets on the basis of dependency degree and patterns inherent in the target promoter region to be modeled. In addition, decomposed subsets are modeled by using a first-order Markov model, allowing the predictive model to reflect dependency between adjacent positions explicitly. In this way, the CDRM allows for potentially complex dependencies between positions in the core promoter region. Such complex dependencies may be closely related to the biological and structural contexts since promoter elements are present in various combinations separated by various distances in the sequence. Thus, CDRM may be appropriate for recognizing core promoter regions and TSSs in vertebrate genomic contig. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithm, we tested it using standardized data and real core promoters, and compared it with some current representative promoter-finding algorithms. The developed algorithm showed better accuracy in terms of specificity and sensitivity than the promoter-finding ones used in performance comparison.

• Journal of Sericultural and Entomological Science
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.122-125
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• 2012

This study was aimed for a development of a useful gene promoter which has a transcript expressional specificity in the early embryonic period of the silkworm, Bombyx mori. To select a useful gene expressed in the early embryonic stage, we constructed and analyzed a PCR-base subtraction cDNA library. In subtractive hybridization analysis, we confirmed four clones as differently expressed genes(BmNanos-like, BmNanos-P, BmNanos-O, BmVasa mRNAs). Northern hybridization and real time PCR results reveled that the BmNanos-like gene promoter is suitable for the silkworm transgenic vector system. Further defined studies on molecular functions and biological roles of their promoters will give us well-fined information and its application.